I have awg 18, 20 and 22 nichrome wire to use building a plastic ( Lexan, acrylic, pvc) bender. I built one, but it no longer works, so I need help designing a new and better one. 120 AC to whatever DC voltage is required. Any help will be appreciated.

 

Why is DC necessary?
The ones I put together were AC and simple Triac controlled .
I used PVC pipe for the frame if portable.

 

What's wrong with a hot air gun and a small nozzle, works for me, though I'm intrigued by the idea of a 'bender' for plexiglass/acrylic as I'm using them a lot for housings, protective guards, etc. at the mo.

 

Thanks to both of you. I don't know why I got stuck on DC. Probably because I figured I'd have more control, by adding a DC speed controller between the AC power supply and the nichrome wire. Don't know anything about triacs, so I clearly need to find out more about them. And I need to be able to heat long or short widths of plex, which would make it difficult to heat the length evenly with a hair dryer. But you've supplied me with some ideas I will use. Thanks.

 

I think max is saying use a typical light dimmer switch that you can buy at your local hardware store.

 

A simple light dimmer and a stepdown transformer say 12V 5A should work...

 

with a hair dryer.

Not a hair-dryer!

 

Thanks to all of you for the input. When I realized that sussing out triacs for my power supply was going to be more involved than I thought, I settled on using a Router Speed Controller because they can be got for a variety of amperages and aren't particularly expensive. Then, upon noticing that all the AC power sources use 3-prong plugs, another issue arose: Heat requires amps, and I'd prefer that all those amps be grounded. So how do I ground an AC plastic bender?

 

Just because I have these.

 

220 volts?

 

In researching this topic I realized that there are some pretty basic details about which I don't know squat, for example, what is this kind of power-delivery plug called?

 

The female socket is
Commonly used for power to domestic appliances, TV's, PC's etc

 

Thank you, MaxHeadRoom, for the tip. With it, I was able to at least find power cords for that configuration.

 

Ronsimpson, I can understand that a triac transformer could be useful in many ways beyond my immediate need for a plastic bender, but I think the Router control will do the job. How do you make use of the more expensive option?

 

The power lead is called a figure of 8 mains plug..